


Try to Picture Me Without You but I Can't

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon Timeline, Canon typical body horror, F/F, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Fanart, M rating is a formality, Wings, but it's nothing bad, how many first kiss fics can I do before they actually have one, just in case the body horror is a little much for some, spoilers for 122, too many - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28990452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: The city has been beaten back for now, but it's taking a final toll before it goes.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 15
Kudos: 187





	Try to Picture Me Without You but I Can't

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I saw a piece of fanart today that hit ALL of my buttons and it is DEFINITELY linked at the bottom of this fic because frankly everyone should see it.
> 
> Pushed the narrative ahead a bit, played with the eyes - don't think too hard about it. We're here for the h/c.

The fight is over, or as good as. The city howls with the rage of millions - not stopped forever, but delayed another generation at least. Success has been snatched from within its grasp, and it seethes its displeasure even as it warps in on itself. Lucien hangs suspended like a puppet, an example made with the last of a terrible and ancient wrath. The eyes on his body have winked out one by one with a spurt of blood, and his own eyes…Yasha can't look. Yasha can't look away.

His screams are drowned out by the cacophony around them, and the tabaxi under Yasha's hands is struggling to get to him - Lucien was their friend, their friend, she's so _sorry -_ and as the last of the lights go out on his purple skin, Caleb drops to one knee. Veth is at his side in an instant, and though his teeth are gritted his hand when it grasps hers is firm. He says something, jerks again as a stain begins to spread from his thigh.

Whatever is happening to the eyes, he only has five. Yasha desperately recalls the wave of healing Caduceus had sent forth and watches in horror as the glow on the back of Caleb's neck goes dark and he drops to his forearms, head pressed to the ground. He's going to be alright, she thinks.

But _Beau_.

She seems to realize it too, looking at her now. Beau with her bruises and cuts left by Lucien and the Tomb Takers, leaning on her staff for support with her shoulders heaving as she sucks in steady breaths. Beau, who was fighting for her life out of range of the heal pulse, who has only two red eyes but so little left of her to give. When Lucien falls, her eyes tear first to Caleb, then across the blood-streaked snowfield to Yasha. No fear as Caleb staggers, only resignation. This is the price to undo what has been done, and it is a price that Beau will pay without regret.

Beau stands up straight and closes her eyes.

Yasha is already moving when the eye on the side of her neck grows brighter and explodes into darkness, her wings carrying her with hardly anything in the way of a conscious plan. No time for commands, just a single thought: _please._ Beau's spine seems to invert with agony, and then she snaps forward to clutch her left hand to her middle with a scream through gritted teeth. Yasha is _there,_ she's reaching for Beau, and then those blue eyes flash red and Beau sways.

She collapses soundlessly into Yasha's arms, her staff falling from her open hand to impact the packed ice in place of her body as Yasha gathers her close and she already knows -

She's carried Beau so many times, knows exactly how she fits in her grasp - and it's wrong now, every bit of it. The weight of her small frame is uneven and drives home the conscious knowledge that there is none of Beau here to assist, nothing of her to participate in what's become something of their dance. The body in Yasha's arms is all at once too heavy to be the Beau she knows and too light to have ever had enough room to hold the entirety of her inside of it. It's _wrong_ that everything left of her fits in Yasha's arms like this, and it's only when she opens her mouth to plead that Yasha realizes she's crying.

"Beau." Her voice cracks, and some part of her registers that if she can hear herself, the city must be gone for good now. The only screams now are coming from somewhere between her own head and her heart. She shakes her gently, so gently. "Beau, wake up. Please. It's over."

The others are looking to her now - she can see Caleb's face ashen with pain and grief, Jester's faint expression as she wobbles towards them from so far away. Too far, and Caduceus is only just sitting up.

"We won," Yasha says. "Come back to me." Beau's head lolls on her shoulder as she draws her close and presses her lips to Beau's, butterfly-light and as soft as she knows how to be. Yasha squeezes her eyes shut as a rising wave of pain crests inside of her, and then she rests her forehead on Beau's and reaches desperately into that instinctual place her wings had sprung from when she called. She's calling again now, a broken and whispered "don't go."

It's not a prayer to the Storm Lord. She's not even certain it's a prayer to Beau. It goes somewhere deeper, draws from the light that has been burning inside of her at every passing thought she's allowed herself that finally, there's a future for her. Yasha reaches for the thread that connects her to the woman lying so still in her arms, and she does what she's been too afraid to let herself do for far too long - she grasps it with everything in her and _claims_ it.

_Don't die._

Her hands warm suddenly in the cold stillness surrounding them. They're glowing, probably, but even if Yasha were to somehow find reason to tear her eyes from Beau, the light from her wings would obscure it. It's such a meager offering, this healing - little more than a breath. But it's breath that Beau lacks and if it can be Yasha's to give, she could do nothing less.

The heat fades from her hands, and for a long and terrible second there is nothing but the sound of Jester's slow shuffle forward and the hushed breeze that rustles Beau's rogue strand of hair like it's trying to nudge her awake too.

And then those blue eyes open inches from Yasha's, Beau's chest fills with a desperate inhale, and Yasha falls to her knees with the wrecked sound grief makes when it shatters into relief. Beau gives a little grunt in surprise and maybe pain as Yasha buries her face in the crook of her neck and takes the first clear breath she can remember in a long, long time.

In spite of the cold, Beau's fingers when they splay somewhat clumsily along Yasha's ear are warm, and her eyes when Yasha lifts her head are soft and clear. "Hey you," Beau manages, and there's a split in her lip that ekes the slightest bit of blood when she smiles. "Not dead, as promised. Date still on?"

It starts as a laugh, but the sound hits Yasha's throat and strangles into a choked sob. Her wings dissipate, but Beau seems to her to grow even brighter in their absence as her smile fades into concern and her thumb swipes shakily over the corner of Yasha's mouth. "It's okay, Yash. You got me."

Jester's hand grasps Beau's shoulder and she looks up and groans as the green light passes into her. "Fuck yes, Jes. Thanks."

Yasha seizes the moment afforded her to get her breathing under control, and when she looks again it's to find Jester watching Beau with some kind of wildness in her expression that echoes the fear and relief only just dissipating from her.

Jester takes Beau's face between both of her hands and squishes her cheeks, words shaky but strong. "No more creepy books, Beau."

Beau hesitates, but it's not a real demand and she gives Jester the weak nod she's looking for. "I'll be more careful," she says, and that at least sounds like truth.

Jester releases her and nods in return, then presses a kiss to Beau's forehead and pushes away towards the others.

Yasha pulls her arm free from under Beau's knees and wipes the heel of her hand over her eyes before clasping Beau's where it still rests on her face. They watch each other silently for a moment - no words, just seeing. Yasha turns Beau's hand over, brushes her lips over the bloody wraps covering the spot where the eye had broken apart.

"I was so afraid I wouldn't get to you in time," she says, aching. "That I'd…failed. Again."

There's something like distress on Beau's face now, but the crease in her brow as she sits up with a gentle "hey" has nothing to do with almost dying except for whatever she's seeing on Yasha's own expression. "Hey," she whispers again. "You did everything right. Nothing was gonna stop that. You were here to make sure I walked away from it, okay?" The full weight of their position on the ground seems to hit her, and she blushes but she doesn't let go. "You uh. You did the...thing." She rolls her other hand like Yasha should know what she's saying - which has never worked before, so Yasha just waits patiently for the eventual elaboration. Beau sighs. "I had to...you -"

"Saved your ass because we're a fuckin' team?"

Beau looks up past Yasha's shoulder and scowls at Fjord, which is basically smiling. "I was gonna get there eventually."

Fjord snorts, kneels beside them. "Not before dinner, by the sound of it." Beau flips him off and makes a half-hearted attempt to bite him when he touches her shoulder. He prods her cheek in retaliation and faces Yasha. "Quick flying there, Yasha. Those wings suit you."

They haven't really talked, since…well. Fjord isn't someone Yasha's bonded with a lot in general. It takes a special kind of person to be able to approach Beau the way he does - Yasha won't soon forget the glimpse she'd caught that night in the bar, before traveling to Beau's old home. Fjord, reaching out to wipe a tear from Beau's face, and Beau leaning in, not away. The smallest of distances, a gulf between Yasha and her ability to coax that same reaction.

Glimpsing that moment had filled her with a kind of longing she was only starting to consider giving a name to, then, but now the memory just makes her smile. "Thank you, Fjord."

He returns it and holds up Beau's staff suddenly. "Alright, all hands on deck," he says, and he pokes his first mate in the ankle with it. "We have to check on everyone, finish sorting out all of this so we can finally have a night in our fucking tower without unwanted company."

Beau grumbles something like "aye aye" and leans on Yasha to stand, and once they're up she seems to take stock and winces. "I'm good," she says when Yasha reaches out hesitantly, but she does take her hand and that's more than enough. She hesitates. "Are _you_ …good?"

Yasha surveys the scene around them - the cleared sky, the ruined snow, the cluster of people surrounding Lucien - Nein and Tomb Takers alike. She lingers for a moment on all of it and returns to Beau, lifting a hand to wipe away a little of the blood on the side of her neck. "I promised not to let anything happen to you," she says. "I'm not sure if I succeeded, but. You're here. So yes, I'm…good."

Beau squeezes her hand, and then without warning her arms are around Yasha's middle and her head tucked under her chin. Yasha recovers quickly and hugs Beau back just as fiercely, content to take this moment and sink into the security of having Beau here with her now.

"To be fair," Beau says from below. "Preventative measures have never really worked for me. You kept your promise pretty much exactly how I figured."

Her hair warms where Yasha huffs in a mixture of amusement and exasperation. "Stubborn," she murmurs.

"Yeah." Beau pulls back just enough to look up at her again, softly inquisitive. "That okay with you?"

She knows the answer already, and Yasha doesn't need an apology but she spots it in there anyway. "More than," she says, and she can feel the moment it occurs to both of them how close they're standing and how positioned they already are for something that Yasha, at least, has been dying to do for weeks.

It's not the right place - probably their priorities are a little screwy, but they meet halfway and there's the slightest taste of iron on Beau's lips, and Yasha would be lying if she said she hadn't expected their eventual first kiss to go pretty close to this. Its quieter than she expected- sweeter, fewer things trying to kill them.

Maybe that's for the best, given everything.

"Okay," Beau says when they break apart. "Definitely feeling better now."

Yasha's lips chill quickly in the cold air, and it's tempting to put them back on Beau's to warm them but she knows they're decided on what's next. "Let's put a pin in it," she says, and light flares in her chest when Beau giggles a little breathlessly.

"I'll hold you to it."

**Author's Note:**

> Go look at this art and tell me you wouldn't wanna figure out how they got there: https://thebotjock.tumblr.com/post/641296985437175808/healing-hands
> 
> (I was thinking the eyes exploding were giving off some bad psychic damage, if anyone was wondering.)


End file.
